The story behind Blood
II picks up from the original with Caleb wandering
the Earth, licking his wounds and thinking up new
one-liners. Determined to take over the Cabal (who hate
Caleb because he killed their god at the end of the
first game), Caleb raises the other three members of The
Chosen and sets off to kick some ass. Unfortunately, the
members of the Cabal have started fooling with
other-worldly forces and some serious baddies are
crossing over into our world. So, not only does Caleb
have to deal with the forces of the Cabal, he has to
seal the rift the Cabal has created. After all, we don't
want those disgusting creatures taking over our world.
The overall feel of the game is well done, and
conveys that Caleb's world is a horrible, horrible
place. The gothic Cathedral levels are amazing, as are
the levels where you wander through abandoned
buildings--which include nice little touches like dead
folks hanging from ceiling fans (which are spinning),
and impaled bodies littering the floor and walls. The
game does stumble a bit, however, in that there are far
too many "lab" levels--just normal, everyday
environments. Even the levels toward the end of the
game, where you go over to "the other side" aren't as
cool as they could have been.
One of the big draws of the original Blood was
the shameless glee in which it embraced complete and
utter carnage. Fans of the original will be happy to
hear that that attitude is present in the sequel. While
not quite as over-the-top as the first Blood,
there are some nice touches. You'll kill innocents for
health (slice their throat and watch them slowly die),
and pop various limbs off your enemies. Throughout it
all Caleb laughs with the joy of a child--what could be
more fun than offing your enemies? Also present are the
cheesy one-liners, the references to horror movies
(which includes you stumbling across the lair of a
certain predator), and some great in-game music.
The game starts off with the standard Cabalco
thugs--armed with machine guns--and progresses until you
must face the denizens from beyond. The design of the
creatures is top-notch--there is no doubt that these
things come from a very bad place. But while visually
inspiring, their AI isn't too hot. They pretty much
stand in place and lay it on you--they are hard to kill,
however, because they can take a lot of licks and the
hit damage for their attacks is jacked up pretty high.
Much like Shogo, multi-player is the weakest link in
the game. The multi-player maps are uninspired,
seemingly patched together without a lot of thought.
Also, lag can be a problem. Undoubtedly, there will be a
multi-player patch released to remedy this, but
out-of-the-box the performance is not on the same level
as Quake II.
There are a few other bugs present in the game, the
most obvious of which are the long load times. Even on a
high-end machine (a PII 400) the quick load feature was
anything but quick. If you are using a lower-end system,
such as our recommended specs (don't even attempt to
play this game on anything lower), it will take a good
while for the game to load. Beyond that, there are some
problems climbing ladders.
All in all, Blood II is a fine shooter and a
welcome addition to a market filled to the brim with 3D
action games. If you're looking for over-the-top
violence and wise-cracking anti-heroes, you'll dig
Blood II.
